1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to wireless point of sale systems and, more particularly, to wireless payment systems used in connection with point of sale terminals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless payment systems (also known as “mobile commerce systems”) promise to become ubiquitous as enabling wireless devices such as cellular phones and PDAs proliferate the consumer market. Multiple companies are vying for a market share of the wireless payment market, competing with respect to standards and implementations.
Typically, a vendor will set up one or more point of sale terminals (POS terminal) in a vendor location and configure the POS terminals to communicate with the wireless devices of customers visiting the vendor location. The vendor, when choosing to communicate with a customer's wireless device via a POS terminal, must be able to associate the correct device with a particular transaction being performed at a particular POS terminal. For example, if there are five POS terminals next to each other and a customer is checking out on terminal #3, his wireless device may be within communication range of the other four POS terminals. Further, there may be ten or more other customers standing in line among all of the five terminals, and each may have wireless devices (cell phones, Bluetooth-equipped PDAs, etc.) and each of them will be within range of all five of the POS terminals.
A problem encountered with such systems is coming up with a way to assure that once the customer checking out at a particular terminal, e.g., POS terminal #3, has had his or her items scanned, and thus the terminal is ready to perform the wireless payment transaction, POS terminal #3 can be associated with the proper wireless device to complete the financial transaction.
One method of making this association is to have the customer initiate a physical contact with a device at the POS terminal, linking his or her wireless device to the POS terminal (e.g., insert the device into a cradle); this, however, defeats the purpose of a wireless system, since the device is physically connected to the POS terminal.
Another option is to have POS terminal #3 (in this example) broadcast a query to all devices in its proximity, requesting the customer at POS terminal #3 to indicate that his or her device is the correct one. This suffers the problem that someone else could “hijack” the session by falsely acknowledging that he or she is the customer at POS terminal #3, when in reality he or she may be at POS terminal #2, or worse, outside the store altogether. This might enable an unscrupulous person to perform unauthorized tasks, such as to identify what others are purchasing, obtain confidential financial information, and/or obtain data that could be used for “spamming”. When the POS terminal sends the transaction details to the inappropriate device, it is confusing and inconvenient, and the real customer loses privacy. In addition, all of the customers are inconvenienced by the incessant broadcast queries being received on their wireless devices. Further, requiring the customer to push an extra button on their wireless device decreases the transparency of the wireless payment process.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a wireless payment system which is essentially transparent to the user but which can accurately, dependably and automatically associate the correct wireless device with the correct point of sale terminal to complete the transaction.